.Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
Parliamentary
memben of the
Kurdistan
Democratic Party,
including .
Ahmmed Salar;
discuss the war
situation. The
105-member body
unanimously
approved a
statement
condemning the
U.S. plan to allow
Turkish troops
. into Iraq as
PETER BOSCH I Miami Herald "unacceptable:"
u.s. envoyenters north Iraq
to visit Kurd opposition leader
By Jonathan S"Landay
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
SALAHADDIN,Iraq - In a
provocative thumb in the eyé to
Saddam Hussein, a U.S. presidential
envoy entered Kurdheld
northern Iraq yesterday to
confer. with opposition leaders
on how to govern the country
after the dictator's removal.
The visit of Zalmay Khalilzad,
President Bush's special envoy
to the Iraqi opposition, seemed
intended to mock Hussein by
demonstrating his inability to
stop a lone, unarmed U.S. official
from crossing his border.
Khalilzad, an Afghan~born senior
National SecuritY Council
official, crossed through the
Khabur Gate border post with a
small entourage of U.S. officials
and security guards, said Iraqi
opposition officials.
They were met by senior Kurdish
officials, who sped them to
Salahaddin, the mountaintop
stronghold of Masood Barzani,
head of the Kurdistan Demo-'
cratic Party.
Salahaddin is in a part of the
Vermont-sized, Kurd-run enclave
shielded from Iraqi air attack
by a U.S.- and British-enforced
no-fly zone. Salahaddin
is about 20 miles from the front
line between Barzani's guerrillas
and Hussein's troops, well
within Iraqi missile range.
Khalilzad's arrival sets the
stage for today's opening of a
conference on governing post-
Hussein Iraq. Neighboring
Iran's Islamic regime sent a delegation;
Turkey and moderate
Arab states did not.
It will be the first meeting in
a decade ofleaders of Iraq's disparate
religious, political and
ethnic-based. opposition parties
on their native soil.
Opposition leaders agreed in
December that Iraq should' become
a parliamentary federation,
but they were unable to decide
how that should be achieved.
Thé meeting in northern Iraq
has been repeatedlypostponed
by delays 'in Khalilzad's arrival
and furious squabbling in cau-
. cuses, satellite phone conversations
and newspaper pages.
Opposition leaders object to a
planto have a U.S. military governor
run. Iraq for up to two
years, saying it would leave senior
Hussein loyalists in place
and perpetuate domination of
minority Sunni Arabs over majority
Shiite Arabs, as well as
Kurds and other minorities.
Some opposition leaders argue
they should form a transitional
administration to run the
country until elections are held.
The opposition, especially thé
Kurds, is livid with Washington
. for agreeing in principle to allow
Turkish troops to enter
northern Iraq as part of a deal
for U.S. troops to 'use Turkish
.bases as invasion-staging areas.
Only hours before Khalilzad's
arrival, the lOS-member Kurdish
Parliament unanimously approved
a statement condemning
the plan as "unacceptable"
- language considerably more
restrained than the threats to
attack Turkish forces that some
Kurds had made in recent days.
After the vote, senior officials
warned that a Turkish incursion
wouldjeqpardizethe Kurds' cooperation
with the U.S. military's
plan to use their enclaveto open a
northern front against Hussein.
"We hope the Americans wili
take care of this issue, and they
do not replace one dictator with
another dictator," said Gen.'
Mam Rostam, military adviser
to Jalal Talabani, leader of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Ankara says it must send soldiers
in behind U.S. forces to'
prevent Iraqi Kurds from declaring
a KUl"dishstate and thus
fomenting further 'separatist
feeling among Turkey's. Kurds.
Kurdish leaders have said repeatedly
that they have no intention
of doing that. They charge.
that Turkey is bent on regional
domination and seizing the oilrich
tèrritory around the Iraqi
cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Contact reporter Jonathan Landay